Conscious Sensation

Introduction

Conscious sensation means a state of mind when a person is aware of something. A significant part when describing consciousness is memory. The memory can be brought into awareness anytime. In an unconscious man, there are several stores of feelings, thoughts, urges, and memories. In an unconscious mind, everything is a reservoir that exists outside our consciousness. Most of the senses can seem unpleasant. They may be related to anxiety or pain. In order words, consciousness is everything you experience. Some order things that you experience stuck in your mind. There is a complex system involved in the sensation of consciousness. The brain is involved in generating experience. The cerebellum is involved in the control of movements and gait. The cerebellum consists of several modules and neurons involved in the management of major life activities. In the posterior part of the brain cortex, the parietal occipital and temporal regions are responsible for what we see. People may develop impaired consciousness due to brain impairments resulting from intoxication, injury, or trauma.

The Glasgow coma scale assesses the neurological state. The patient is evaluated clinically by observing the response to arousal and responsiveness. Several conditions, such as unresponsiveness, including alertness, attention, comprehension, are considered. Besides, assess any deficit in the conscious state ranging from delirium, disorientation, and meaningful communication loss. And the loss of movement in response to painful stimuli. The disorders arising from the impaired conscious levels result in loss of awareness, disturbed sleep-awake cycles, or verbal response loss.

Major Anatomy and Neuronal Correlates 

The brain is involved in generating experience; apart from that, the spinal cord is essential. The spinal cord injury results in paralysis, the body sensations suffer, and people cannot control their bowel movements and bladder. People experience all of these things that changed their life, and that is something they never experienced before. They see, feel those emotions, and smell. Also, if we consider the cerebellum, it is involved in motor functions. The cerebellum is also responsible for the control of posture and gait. If you play a guitar, typing, or climbing a mountain, all these activities involve the brain’s central part, the cerebellum.

The cerebellum consists of almost sixty-nine billion neurons, four times greater than the brain’s total number of neurons. As for performing major life events and activities, the cerebellum has a significant function. Any damage to the cerebellum may lead to deficits; people cannot recall their past events. In the cerebellum, there is a set of neurons that feeds the next, which influences the other. Moreover, more than a hundred independent computational modules are present in the cerebellum. Gray matter and white matter are also involved in the genie of consciousness. Apart from that, the parietal, temporal, and occipital regions are present in the cortex’s posterior part. These regions of the brain work in the tracking of what we see. If a piece of even a small portion of the cortex is excised, it may lead to the loss of patients’ conscious content. The person’s ability to recognize a face or see motion, color, or space is lost. So, most of the origin of consciousness is in the posterior region of the cortex.

A study indicates that the cerebral cortex is also associated with conscious awareness. The cerebral cortex is a connected sheet of nervous tissue. Every experience correlates with neural activities, which is known as neuronal correlations of consciousness ( NCC). This connection or correlation is present in the hot zone, consisting of the brain’s occipital, temporal, and parietal regions. Talking about consciousness is not a process occurring in the brain, but it controls all the conscious sensation levels. It is considered a proper biological phenomenon. The brain controls this process, and human consciousness has its evolutionary disadvantages and advantages. One of the most typical features involved is objectivity, seriality, the feeling of conscious agency. The brain is involved in controlling all behavior types, and all kinds of related physiological movements are involved.

Consciousness and its Correlation with Other Events

The brain has virtually unlimited resources, a specific type of event is involved, and the conscious even happen one at the moment and is consecutive. The moments disappear but have an impact on the behavior of a person. The interaction of humans with the environment leads to any complex action. As humans and consciousness are related, the practical tools involved are communication and play. A study suggests that, in some exceptional cases, the state of the consciousness can be parallel.  Memory is to optimize the present , and how a person can have better adaptations in the future rather than storing past.they are the errors of the memory and helps an individual bring flexibility and adaptability over time. New symbolic events occur in the future after a person experiences memory error. The person is conscious and is splitting time in different events considering the past consequences, present situations, and future adaptations, making human consciousness exciting and dramatic.

Some studies have shown a relationship between consciousness the alertness. It involves the cerebral cortex, neurons connections, and neurochemistry. The specific reticular information is transmitted to the cortex by the thalamic, and they are responsible for gating. In return, they provide feedback to the brain stem centers, which play a part in arousal and alertness. In the process of arousal, several neurotransmitters play a role, such as cholinergic, monoaminergic glutamic, and aspartic acids or intrinsic cortical neurotransmitters. Also, several theories represent that awareness, and the creation of the thought is at the highest level of conscious behavior. Sensation allows the stimulation of the sensory receptors, and it works along with the conscious. The factors and phenomena are interrelated. The further processing of the additional sensory information is the perception, and we are less aware of what is happening to ourselves than what is happening in the outside worlds; this idea demonstrates that the perception overrides the sensation. In the process of consciousness, an essential factor is involved in visual object recognition. This visual object recognition is a complex process, and it involves the primary visual cortex. The reciprocal connections have a link with memory stores. Another phenomenon related to the conscious , sensation, and perception is the attention; several structure in the attention phenomenon. The individual must be awake and alert. It includes the directivity and the selectivity of the mental process as the main features.

Anterior cingulate gyrus, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, inferior parietal lobule, and the thalamic reticular nucleus are involved in the attention. Apart from the regions and neurotransmitters, several systems such as dopaminergic and noradrenergic systems are essential in the attention responses, although debates regarding the phenomenon still exist. Something you are aware of includes the psychology of sensations, ideas, attitudes, and feelings. Many modern studies and experiments are conducted on the phenomenon of consciousness, and bases on the psychological experiments, the experiments include the investigations that involve the subliminal stimuli, and then the direct effects are noticed. In the case studies, the consciousness’s alternations are studied in response to trauma, injury, illness, or drugs. In understanding the basic phenomenon of consciousness, ultimate techniques are developed to assess the neural and psychological mechanisms involved in the conscious sensation.

Clinical Importance of Conscious Sensation

Assessment

The patient is clinically assessed by observing the patient’s response to arousal and responsiveness. Several states, including alertness, attention, and comprehension, are considered. Besides, evaluate any deficit in the conscious state ranging from delirium, disorientation, and meaningful communication loss. And the loss of movement in response to painful stimuli.

The degree of consciousness is assessed by the Glasgow Coma Scale, the standard behavior observation scale. The medical approach to consciousness is derived from the need to treat patients whose brain function is impaired .the brain function impairment may result from disease, brain damage, toxins, or drugs. The medical approach usually involves investigating the conscious state of mind and its level ranging from coma and brain death, which indicated low level, full alertness, responsiveness, and attention, suggesting a high end of consciousness. The patients are assessed by using a set of procedures known as neuropsychological assessment. One of the methods is simple, and the other requires substantial expertise because of being complex in nature. If the patient responds to the questions and answers in a meaningful way, he is considered in a good state of consciousness and alert. Neurologists carry out complicated procedures; several tests are performed in the hospital setting. The Glasgow coma scale conducts outcomes. The subscales measure the verbal response, motor response, and eye response.

Disorders of Consciousness

Medical conditions that inhibit or cause a deficit in the conscious sensation are called disorders of consciousness. 

Locked-In Syndrome

The patient has visible eye movement, is aware, and prominent sleep cycles.

Minimally Conscious State

The patient shows meaningful behaviors but has intermittent periods of awareness and wakefulness

Persistent Vegetative State

The patient lacks awareness. The patient has sleep-wake cycles and displays reflexive behavior.

Chronic Coma

In a chronic coma, the sleep-wake cycles are absent, and the patient lacks awareness. They are usually accompanied by reflexive behavior. Evidence suggests that cerebral cortical dysfunction can lead to coma. It leads to complete unresponsiveness.

Brain Death

It is the end stage of the consciousness in which the patient lacks awareness, sleep cycles .in the brain death, brain mediated reflexive behavior is absent.

Anosognosia

It is a Greek derived word and means the disease’s unawareness, and the patient usually denies that he/she has a problem, resulting from stroke most commonly. The stroke usually damages the parietal lobe in the right hemisphere of the brain., this results in the syndrome known as hemi spatial neglect. The patients are generally paralyzed on the right side of the body. They fail to recognize the part of their body that is paralyzed or unable to move. Another syndrome causes the patient to be blind, but the patients usually claim they can seem normal. It is a rare condition, and it persists.

When surgeons excise the prefrontal cortex in a study, it leads to the loss of actions, lack of proper emotions, repetition of several words, and motor deficits. But following the operation, they lived on for many years, and their IQ level improved. Several patients whose brain is damaged due to the mediations, injury , trauma, infections, or extreme intoxication have inappropriate verbal responses, although they lived for many years.

Summary

Conscious sensation means a state of mind when a person is aware of something, a significant part when describing the conscious sense involves various events. Consciousness is everything you experience. Some order of things you experience stuck in your mind. the brain is engaged in generating experience, and the cerebellum has a network of modules and neurons involved in controlling various life activities. Some studies have shown the conscious state’s relationship to the memory, which happened in the past. And alertness includes the cerebral cortex and neuron connections, and neurochemistry. Several neurotransmitters play an essential role in the process of arousal. In the process of conscious sensation, the primary visual cortex is involved in optical object recognition. The phenomenon, attention also plays an integral part in the process of consciousness. The person must be awake and alert.

The debates regarding these phenomena still exist. Something you are aware of includes the psychology of sensation, ideas, attitude, and feelings. The Glasgow comma scale clinically assesses the patients, and the medical approach involves treating patients whose brain function is impaired due to intoxication, brain damage, or injury. The procedures are the neuropsychological assessments. Several tests are performed in the hospital setting, and the outcomes are measured. The strategies usually include assessing patients from a high state of consciousness, alertness to a low level of consciousness, loss of verbal response, and sleep-wake cycle. The patient’s response to arousal and responsiveness, including attention, awareness, and comprehension, is considered. The patient develops coma due to cerebral cortical dysfunction and brain death, leading to the absence of sleep wake cycle, reflex behaviors, and complete unresponsiveness. 

References

• Carruthers, P. (15 Aug 2011). Higher-Order Theories of Consciousness. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
• Gulick, R. v. (2004). Consciousness. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Metaphysics research lab, Stanford University. 
• Kitazawa, S. (2002). Consciousness and Cognition 11(3).
• https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PET-SCAN_BrainDeath_-_Coma.jpg